


A Mite More Interesting

by RileyC



Series: Random Kisses: A Multi-Fandom Series [2]
Category: 3:10 to Yuma (2007)
Genre: M/M, Seduction, Western
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-28
Updated: 2013-05-28
Packaged: 2017-12-13 07:06:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/821433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RileyC/pseuds/RileyC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ben Wade won't stop talking; Dan Evans can't stop listening.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Mite More Interesting

**Author's Note:**

> Another one for 30_random_kisses. Prompt: Ocean breeze. Also, there was a cowboy prompt at comment_fic the other day on LiveJournal that brought these guys to mind.

“You ever see the ocean, Dan?”  Ben Wade asks the question as he leans back against a rock, his gaze seemingly transfixed by the dark desert sky above.

 

They’re on their own right now. Just them and the fire and that star-scattered sky, with a mournful coyote off in the distance to provide an eerie serenade.  And there’s Ben Wade waxing philosophical like a man with all the time in the world. Dan knows he shouldn’t listen. Nothing good will come of it. All the same, Ben Wade and his words have caught hold of a long ago memory and dragged it up through Dan Evans’ mind. He settles back against his own rock as he remembers a night way back before the war, before life had whittled him down. “Seen it once,” he says and tugs his coat around him against the desert cold.

 

There’s a languorous warmth in Ben Wade’s voice that makes Dan think of a big tomcat stretched out in the sun, making like it’s too lazy to bother right until a mouse comes near enough to pounce. “Tell me about it,” he says and smiles just like he’s harmless. “Tell me how the water looked all silver and shiny in the sun. How it stretched away to the horizon so a man might think there was nothing else in the world. Tell me about it, Dan,” Ben Wade keeps saying like he’s casting some kind of spell over Dan.

 

Maybe he was, Dan thinks as he catches a glimpse of Ben Wade in the firelight. “It was nighttime,” is all he says. He doesn’t tell him how the moon was shining down full on the water, or how the ocean was a like mirror made of black glass.

 

Ben Wade looks across the firelight at him like he heard those words even without Dan saying them. “Was it a cold night, Dan?” he asks and all of a sudden he’s whole lot nearer Dan than before. Near enough to reach out and touch…if a man wanted to. Dan flicks his gaze away, over at the sagebrush and shadows. Anything could hide there, coyote or Apache, and it wouldn’t catch Dan’s attention the way Ben Wade did as he sidled up close with his whispers. “Did the breeze off that ocean make you shiver, Dan? Did it feel like a cool breath on your neck?”

 

He swallows and wets his lips, every part of him parched by the desert. It had been hot that night, hot and sticky and he’d felt uncomfortable in his clothes. The breeze had felt good. “It felt…nice.”

 

“Did it?” There was something eager in Ben Wade’s voice now, like he’d been hungry for something and had stumbled on a feast all laid out. “Did that breeze feel good on your skin, Dan?” He was so close now; close enough his thigh rubbed against Dan’s. “Tell me how that ocean breeze felt. Tell me how it felt in your hair,” he says and pushes Dan’s hat off so his fingers could slide through the strands. “Tell me how it caressed you. Did you take off all your clothes in that moonlight, Dan?”

 

His breath is cool against Dan’s neck and he turns to him, mouth open to ask what in hell he’s talking about now. Ben Wade robs him of those words. Steals them and his breath and any lick of good sense Dan’s ever known. Everything’s narrowed down to the scrape of Ben Wade’s beard against his cheek and the taste of whiskey and tobacco on the outlaw’s tongue. And for the first time even Ben Wade can’t say anything when his mouth’s so busy making off with Dan’s reason.

 

Dan can’t even be surprised. Not when something in him knew this was going to happen all along.

 

“This doesn’t change anything,” he says when the outlaw draws back and fixes him with a cat-in-the-cream look.

 

“’Course not, Dan.” Ben Wade strokes a finger along Dan’s cheek, like he wants to savor the sharpness of the bone. “Makes them a mite more interesting, though, can’t deny that.”

 

No; no, he can’t deny that. And Dan’s still thinking about it when Will and the others drift back in to camp. He’s going to think about it all the way to Contention and whatever the hell waits for them there.

 

Across the fire Ben Wade catches his eye. He sends Dan a wink before he settles back again his rock, hat tipped down over his eyes as he hums, _“They-re gonna hang me in the morning, a'fore this night is done…”_

 

Dan thinks about that, too, and wonders and watches Ben Wade on through the night.


End file.
